History Film / TheGreenKnight

* AffablyEvil: The eponymous villain--[[AntiVillain if he can be called a "villain" at all]]--is polite and patient to a gentlemanly degree. [[spoiler:In their final confrontation, the Green Knight bluntly but truthfully answers Gawain's questions and halts his swing whenever the young knight pleads. If you go with the interpretation that the Green Knight lets Gawain live at the end, his closing "Off with yer head" remark can be read as him playfully telling the young man to be on his way.]]

* AnAxeToGrind: Just like in the source material, the eponymous Green Knight prefers the axe.

*** Once you’re in the LandOfFaerie there are frequently all kinds of bizarre rules and restrictions you have to obey, like not eating the food or not offering anything without receiving anything in return. The strange game the Lord and Lady play with Gawain, where he and the lord must exchange whatever the other receives, fits this pattern.

*** Gawain treks for miles after meeting Winifred, but encounters no villagers or townsfolk, until he stumbles on Lord Bertilak's castle and beats down the door to get out of the rain. Moreover, he runs through one last stretch of WildWilderness when he leaves for the Green Chapel. Real-life castles need a community for trade and tithing, even if it's just a village or two for necessities.

** The scavengers that ambush Gawain and steal the Green Knight's axe from him. It's the most unambiguously realistic obstacle Gawain encounters in his journey and yet it's not clear if it's a fantastical challenge that's part of his journey to the Green Chapel or an actual trio of bandits that ran off with the axe before Winifred got it back for Gawain.

** The film plays with this in the Well of St. Winifred segment. Gawain is understandably perturbed when he's greeted in a seemingly abandoned house by a young lady who looks very much flesh-and-blood but claims to have had her (fully intact, still attached) head chopped off by a spurned lord, who then threw it into the spring. It's not clear at first whether she is an actual ghost or simply a very disturbed young woman traumatized by her assault, but he agrees to retrieve a skull from the bottom of the nearby well anyway. [[spoiler:Then the ambiguity is thrown out the window when he successfully retrieves her decayed skull, only for it to transform into her mostly intact severed head, which [[LosingYourHead continues to speak to him]] and thanks him for retrieving it for her before disappearing.]]

* PunchClockVillain: This film reimagines the Green Knight as a golem-like being conjured or summoned by Gawain's mother, one who seemingly exists only to carry out his game and who doesn't appear to harbour any ill will toward the young man.

* StealthParody: [[https://dustinkoski.medium.com/the-green-knight-review-78ec61cc8a1b At least one reviewer]] contends that the movie is a deadpan comedy.

* BlueAndOrangeMorality: While the Green Knight's Christmas Game is treated like a true (and frivolous) test of Gawain's manhood by him and everyone else in the movie, the Green Knight seems to ''actually'' see it as a game. He laughs off his own beheading at the start of it and reacts to Gawain's flinching with mild surprise, treating his reluctance to face his own death with dignity as though it wasn't a big deal.

* AdaptationalAbomination: The Green Knight of the poem was just a man colored green, here he's a literal PlantPerson.

* ColorMotif: Frequent contrasts of red and green, which the Lady actually pontificates upon in a lengthy monologue.

'''Gawain:''' Or how great men find greatness.\\

* BaldWomen: The giants are all huge naked bald women, some of them carrying babies in their arms.

'''Queen Guinevere:''' ''Greatness?'' Why is goodness not enough?

->'''King Arthur:''' Tell me a tale of yourself, so I might know thee.\\
'''Gawain:''' I have none to tell.\\
'''Queen Guinevere:''' ''Yet.'' You have none to tell yet.

*** The Lady says that she's read, transcribed or written all of the books in her large library. She seems far to young to have accomplished all that.

* AdvertisedExtra: A promotional video explaining the poem implies that Merlin plays an important role in the story. In the finished film, he appears only twice and has no lines.

* DoubleStandardRapeFemaleOnMale: Both this and the male-on-male version are averted. The Lord and Lady's advances on Gawain are portrayed as horrifying sexual harassment and Gawain is clearly traumatized by the encounters.

* SchizoTech: Camelot is a medieval stone castle, but Castle Bertilak looks hundreds of years more advanced. The Lady even uses a camera obscura to create a photograph, while the first permanent photograph in the real world wasn't made until the 19th century. [[spoiler:This may be justified if, as in the original story, one subscribes to the interpretation that the Lord is actually the Green Knight himself in disguise, meaning that the castle's inhabitants are TheFairFolk and beyond human limitations]].

* OurGiantsAreBigger: The Green Knight is called a giant by the man Gawain encounters in a tavern, but he comes across a group of much larger giants during his journey. They appear as bald, apparently all-female figures, some of whom are carrying babies.

* DecompositeCharacter: Possibly. The lord of the castle and the Green Knight were the same person in the poem, but the movie never establishes if they are the same character, [[{{Fauxshadow}} despite some hinting]].

* SchizoTech: Camelot is a medieval stone castle, but Castle Bertilak looks hundreds of years more advanced. The Lady even uses a camera obscura to create a photograph, while the first permanent photograph in the real world wasn't made until the 19th century.

* PunchClockVillain: This film reimagines the Green Knight as a golem-like being conjured by Gawain's mother, one who exists only to carry out his game and who doesn't appear to harbour any ill will toward the young man.

* IncestSubtext: A lot of it concerning Morgan le Fay and her relationship with Gawain and the king. She possesses the queen, her brother's wife, through her creation, the Green Knight, who reads Morgana's words with Guinevere's mouth, merging the two women for a moment - seemingly for the heck of it, but also to torment her brother and his family; she is present while Gawain is having intercourse with the Lady and is very deeply enmeshed in his life overall, to the point of it being decidedly unhealthy.

* AbsoluteCleavage: The Lady's dress has a nonexistent neckline. [[spoiler:Justified in that she's actively trying to seduce Gawain the entire time, which she eventually succeeds at.]]

* JustBeforeTheEnd: Subtly implied throughout. It's never directly stated, but nevertheless made clear that Camelot is [[TheDungAges in rough shape]], and most of the places outside Arthur's castle are sinking into various degrees of squalor. Civilization outside Camelot appears practically nonexistent, and Gawain's journey takes him through miles and miles of lonely road without ''ever'' passing another town, village, or city. The only living people he encounters on his quest are a trio of wandering bandits and the Lord and Lady Bertilak who live in a gigantic manorhouse apparently ''alone'' but for a silent, blindfolded old woman. The implication seems to be that [[TheGoodKing Arthur's rule]] is the only thing holding the dying kingdom together, as [[spoiler:once Gawain takes the throne in the BadFuture, the whole kingdom almost instantly descends into warfare and anarchy.]]

''The Green Knight'' is a 2021 DarkFantasy film written and directed by Creator/DavidLowery and starring Creator/DevPatel, Creator/AliciaVikander, Creator/JoelEdgerton Sarita Choudhury, Creator/SeanHarris, Creator/KateDickie, Creator/BarryKeoghan, Creator/ErinKellyman, and Creator/RalphIneson. It is based upon the classic Myth/ArthurianLegend tale ''Literature/SirGawainAndTheGreenKnight''. It was initially set to be released in May 29th, 2020 in the United States by Creator/{{A24}}, but its release date was moved to July 30, 2021 due to the UsefulNotes/COVID19Pandemic.

** [[spoiler:Gawain himself seems to have been merged with his younger brother Mordred, as the BadFuture where he is shown to have taken Arthur's throne leads to Camelot's ruin.]]

* RaceLift: Gawain is played by Creator/DevPatel, an actor of Indian descent. While there are two Knights of the Round Table that are not white (Morien the Moor and Palomedes the Saracen), Gawain is not one of them. In fact, he's based on an earlier Welsh character. His mother is another case despite playing the sister of Creator/SeanHarris, although they were half-siblings in the original legends. Saint Winifred is also portrayed by the mixed race Creator/ErinKellyman, though it's unclear whether she's playing a white Briton or not.

* DoubleStandard: The Lady's seduction of Gawain in this movie has all sorts of consent issues, and then she ''immediately'' makes a jab at him afterward by [[NoTrueScotsman telling him he's not a TRUE knight.]]

* CostumePorn: All over the place, but special mention goes to the regalia that Arthur and Guinevere wear, with gold crowns that resemble halos.
** Guinevere's own costume is particularly notable: the pewter pieces she wears correspond to various holy places and churches around England. A common practice of medieval England would be to go on pilgrimages to such places (e.g. the site of Thomas Beckett's murder at Canterbury Cathedral) and collect pewter tokens commemorating the visit. That her chest is hung with them shows that Guinevere is a devoted and pious queen.